Thomas Jefferson

20 years ago

When Thomas Jefferson moved into the White House in 1801

he had been a widower for nineteen years.

After he was inaugurated he continued to live at Mrs. Conrad's

boarding house, from March 4 until March 19.

It probably took that long to bring up from Monticello

the furniture, servants, decorative accessories, and scientific collections.

He installed some of his ingenious gadgets such as

his"machine to hang clothes on" a revolving clothes tree

built in the wardrobe.

President Jefferson was surrounded by his collections, his hobbies, and strange fossils waiting to be studied or classified.

Experiments in horticulture stood about in glass covered saucers. Notebooks and journals always nearby for reference.

His free time was taken up by musical instruments, books,

letters to his family and friends at home.

Jefferson was the greatest connoisseur of wines to live

in the White House, and regarded fine wines as one of the necessities of life. He also had a french chef and fancied such dishes as Boeuf a la Mode.

He held only two receptions a year, one on New Year's Day and the other on the Fourth of July to which all were welcome. This was most likely due to the fact that much of the time there was no official hostess in residence at the White House. When he needed a hostess he called on Dolley

Madison, the wife of his Secretary of State.

He installed another of his "conveniences" in the wall of his dining room, a set of circular shelves.

Upon touching a spring these shelves would turn into the room

loaded with food placed on them by the servants on the

other side of the wall. By this same process the empty

dishes would be removed from the room.

It is noted that at one of the Fourth of July receptions,

a gift of a "mammoth cheese" was presented to Jefferson by

a delegation from Pennsylvania. It weighed over twelve hundred pounds and bore a banner " the greatest cheese in America for the greatest man in America" It took six

horses to haul the wagon load of cheese. Jefferson was so

adamant about not accepting presents that in his personal

account book he noted " to the bearer of the cheese $200."

Year after year the receptions grew until it was necessary

to erect temporary tents and booths on the White House grounds to take care of the hugh crowd. Bareheaded, Jefferson stood on the White House and shook hands with all

who attended.

Jefferson left office in 1809, riding on a wave of popularity. He died at Monticello on the Fourth of July 1826.

_____________________________________________________________

So few words for so great a man.

Lord luv a duck!!! Twelve hundred pounds of cheese?

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Comments (7)

mwoods
20 years ago
Do you know what kind it was? Just think what you could do with 1200 pounds of Brie. Thank you for these threads Jan...I'm starting to look forward to them now. Another good book and one I have,but have only read about halfway through it in dibs and dabs is Jefferson's gardening journals. Talk about meticulous records!
lindac
20 years ago
It seems to me I remember something about Jefferson putting that cheese out for the public to sample and in a very short time all was gone. So I went looking...and didn't find anything about the cheese being eaten, but did find out more about it's making. And this article says it was made in Massachusettes! Could there have been 2 cheeses??
Linda C

Here is a link that might be useful: Greatest cheese
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Janis_G
Original Author
20 years ago
I don't know if there were 2 cheeses Linda. I can't find anything about them either.

Marda, have you been to Monticello? It's a wonderful step back in time. Of all the presidents we've had, Jefferson is my favorite and the one famous person i'd love to sit down to dinner with.
calliope
20 years ago
I'm enjoying these little biographies as well, Janis. Good idea!

I admire him most of all the presidents, at least for being a man of all seasons. He was a blinking genius and he simply loved learning and applying that knowledge. One of his inventions was a macaroni machine. rofl. How's that for eclectic? He also was quite the horticulturist, and since I share the love of agriculture, admired him for his contributions to that arena.

I read a few months ago, it was his book collection replacing the library of Congress after it was destroyed by the British in the war of 1812. What I just read, and hadn't known before was that he was responsible for the building of the University of Virginia.

What strikes me most about him, and also about Washington were their codes of ethics concerning the formation of this new country. They didn't waver much from the straight and narrow.

Yes, I've visited Montecello and it certainly reflected Mr. Jefferson in every way. Can you imagine what a sacrifice it must have been to him to be away from it during his years in office?
mwoods
20 years ago
I still get shivers when I'm reminded that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams not only died on the same day,just hours apart,but that the day was July 4th.
zzepherdogg
20 years ago
Reportedly Adams and Jefferson's last words were that they each thought that the other still lived, and were comforted by the fact. What is sad is that altho the two great revolutionary leaders began as friends and fought the fight against the Brits for years together, they were estranged for a long interval. Lukily, for some reason they renewed thier friendship befor they both died. What a loss, those years that the two great men were seperated by some difference of oppinion.
lindac
20 years ago
When my son was about 7 we did the DC, Monticello, Williamsburg trip. we questioned if he was really old enough to "get" what all he was seeing.
After the first hard day at Williamsburg, the kids passed out like a light and we were quietly reading...and he sat bolt upright in bed and said very loudly "Thomas Jefferson"! Like he was answering a quiz! And flopped back down again...We decided he got it! LOL!
I am also a Jefferson admirer. Remember seeing the bathroom at Monticello. Amazing! Don't know how it worked, probably a clivis, but it looked very much like an ordinary bathroom, door, toilet lid on the toilet and it wasn't a chamber pot. And I, as were so many others were amazed by those doors to the diningroom, where one opened and the other opened at the same time. The guide said they never knew just what the trick was until they had to remove some of the floor for some repair. Then they found the ingenious chain and loop system.
Linda C